Knjigice
Fairy tale · Classic fairy tales
Anne of Green Gables
The story of a red-haired girl who found her home
Also in: Ana z Zelene domačije (Slovenian) · Anna zo Zeleného domu (Slovak)
At Green Gables lived a brother and sister, Matthew and Marilla. They were grey-haired now, and they had sent word to the orphanage: send us a boy to help on the farm. But when Matthew drove up to the station, there on a pile of boards sat a skinny girl with two carrot-red braids, freckles and a much too big straw hat. "I'm Anne!" she cried. "I knew you'd come for me."
1
All the way home Anne talked. The road under the blossoming apple trees she christened the White Way of Delight, and the still water glittering in the sun the Lake of Shining Waters. "Isn't it wonderful that a person can imagine anything?" she asked. Matthew held the reins and said nothing, but something smiled in the corners of his mouth.
2
At home Marilla looked the girl over and said: "There has been a mistake. We asked for a boy." The bag slid out of Anne's hands. "You don't want me?" she whispered. "Because I'm not a boy." And she cried so hard the whole house could hear it. That evening Matthew said quietly to his sister: "Marilla... we might be some good to her."
3
Marilla did not sleep that night. In the morning she said: "You may stay. But wash your ears and don't talk so much." Anne drew a breath and promised both — and did not last till dinner. She ran through the orchard naming all the trees and brooks, and slept that night in her little room under the sloping ceiling. For the first time she had a home.
4
Mrs. Rachel Lynde came to visit and looked Anne up and down. "Terrible skinny. And that hair — as red as carrots!" Anne stamped her foot. "You are a wicked woman!" she shouted. Marilla was immovable: she had to apologise. And Anne did — so beautifully, so solemnly and with such enjoyment that in the end the neighbour very nearly applauded.
5
Across the meadow stood the Barrys' house, and in it black-haired Diana. "Will you be my bosom friend?" asked Anne. They swore it by the brook, hands in each other's hands: for ever and always. They signalled from their windows with a candle — two flashes mean "come at once", three mean "I have something dreadfully important to tell you".
6
Anne baked a cake for company and was immensely proud of it. The guest took one bite, stopped, and asked most politely what it was flavoured with. Anne looked in the cupboard — instead of vanilla she had poured in the liniment for aching knees. She fled to her room and wept into her pillow. And somewhere in the kitchen Marilla was secretly laughing.
7
One day a peddler stopped at the door. "This dye will turn your hair raven black," he promised. Anne dyed and dyed — and when she looked in the glass, her hair was green. Dark, sorrowful green. Marilla washed it seven times over, and then fetched the scissors. Anne wore a cap for a whole week and kept as quiet as a fish.
8
The girls dared one another to walk the ridge of the roof. Anne could never bear a dare. She took three steps, wobbled — and slid down the roof into the bushes. She sprained her ankle and hobbled about on a crutch for three weeks, while Diana brought her flowers and school news every day. "Imagination is fine," sighed Marilla, "and so is sense."
9
Anne was playing a doomed lady in a boat and let herself drift down the river. Out in the middle the boat began to leak. She barely caught hold of a bridge post and clung there until Gilbert rowed by — that same Gilbert who had once called her "Carrots" because of her hair. He saved her. She thanked him as coldly as ice, and still would not forgive him.
10
At Christmas Matthew went to the shop for a present. All week he dreaded the shopkeeper. When Anne folded back the wrapping that morning, everything went quiet: a moss-green dress with soft puffed sleeves. Exactly the kind she had wanted for years. "Matthew," she could hardly say, "it is the loveliest thing I ever saw." And Matthew looked at the floor, happy.
11
Anne studied as though possessed. She and Gilbert chased each other from class to class — one time he was first, the next time she was. And when the scholarship for the high school was announced, they read out her name. Marilla stood by the wall and secretly wiped her eyes. And Matthew told the whole village that this was his Anne.
12
That evening Anne sat at the open window of her little room. Outside the cherry trees breathed sweet in the dusk, far below the Lake of Shining Waters gleamed, and behind her the house with the green gables breathed too. Once she had been a girl nobody expected. "The world is full of imagination," she said softly, "and I am home."
13The End
